thoughts...

Much of what I hafta write about army is inside my dear personal journal, hence no one has to view my crappy whines etc. in any case I doubt anyone reads, but hey just to make sure. Haha.

Anws I realized that many people around me, having been thru the adolescent stage of bgr, are starting to realize all the strings attached and are starting to move on. Now, being more mature and wiser, they have decided that getting attached is dumb, which I thought so long ago. I have long ago decided that I would only get attached if a gal has that much attraction to make me throw away all my worries and inhibitions and proceed. I have met a few such gals, but so far nothing has happened, just as well. I am saved the burden. For those who do not know me, I am extremely particular when it comes to this type of things. I always think too much and am too hesitant. However, that may not be a bad thing. Single-ism still rocks la. Nothing to worry about. Lol. Look at what a carefree life I am having now. I do not feel pressurized to make a move as well though qt a number of my friends know something. In ns, there is simply no time for such nonsense. It would eventually amount to nothing anyway.

Let me talk about the competition thingy. K when I say talk, I mean monologue. Competition is a word that has a multitude of interpretations. I think my interpretation and someone’s is a bit different. Or perhaps its just what drives us on in our goals. True I agree, its damn stupid to put ur aim solely on beating another person. Then when that particular person disappears, you will instantly lose your meaning in life. Its damn unhealthy. Similarly, I also think that it is damn cock to pride yourself on beating others. There is always a better one out there, you can never be the best. These people will be very successful initially, because due to their character they become very driven, but just when they reach the pinnacle of their achievements, they will fall from grace, most of the time due to their sheer arrogance that they are indomitable. Besides, placing your success on top of others’ demise is not something to be proud of. Yet, it is something that is very apparent in this world. Don’t you realize this? Due to the sheer realistic nature of this world, that is what we are taught to do, that is what we have to do. If we want to be successful in our own individual fields, most of the time our success would indicate many others’ downfall, simply because to succeed, we have to be a leader in our own respective field, and there can only be so many leaders. The rest will jus wallow in their slipstream and become another commoner, just like you and me. But can you say that we are idiotic people, or whatever u call that. Thrash talking individuals, in need of an ego boost. So is that supposed to mean that for a run which we can clock 8 mins, we should just clock 10 mins, so that other people can catch up and everybody will be happy. Sure, just do ur best and do it for yourself, but then again in this process of doing it for yourself, you will be building your success on other people’s lack of it. I will not say failure because a stupid thing like that cannot be quantified as failure. So if you say, nope, I wanna run 8 mins just for myself. I don’t care about others. I just wanna run my 8 mins. Then again ask yourself, how did you arrive at the timing of 8 mins. Why not 9 mins, why not 10? Did you like just pull numbers out of the sky, and if u say u think that is what u are capable of, how do you know? My point is, you arrived at this aim of timing of 8 mins because u look at other people’s average timing, did a mental comparison, and then decide where u want to rank in the charts. All this, without knowing it. All this, in essence, is competition by comparison. If you work for you and only you yourself, the word competition would not exist.

Let’s move on to healthy competition. Let’s say two people run together, they push each other on silently, and no matter who finished first they would pat each other on the back and say it’s a good run in the bag?? Are you sure? Firstly, in a competition, there has to be a winner? There may not be any losers, but there has to be a winner based on results, because that is what defines competition. If it did not matter who finished first, how do they push each other on? Where’s the driving force? And if you were the one who finished second, are you sure you would not look at it as if u finished second? In your mind, as well as in everybody else’s mind, you finished second, and you are slower, that’s a fact. Does that still mean that it’s a good run, especially if you say that you are pushing each other on. Because the fact that you all are able to run together means that you could have beaten him. But you came in second. Does it really not matter to you? Then where comes the driving force for you to run harder next time? Finish last also never mind what. To me, healthy competition is all about not having bad blood between each and everyone of them taking part. There is a winner and a loser, and both sides accept the results graciously and vow to work harder next time. That’s healthy competition. That does not mean that results does not exist and does not matter. That indicates clearly that people around you do matter, what they get, what they achieve. This is the world today. We like to compare, we have to compare.

There is nothing wrong with competing among each other. In fact, this is how the world works. Let’s say you go to a scholarship interview, and you get the scholarship. Do you celebrate? Are you happy? Anybody would be, because that is what they want and they got it. However, you getting it also means that there are hundreds out there who are crying because they did not get it. Should you tear up the scholarship contract, just because you do not want to build your success and happiness on others’ demise?

To sum it up, I guess its just the mindset you take when u do things. If you say that hey im happy not because I got the scholarship but because I pipped 200 people to it, then that sucks. However, it is impossible to be individual and not involve anyone else in our processes, in our lives, simply because we live in a crowded world of humans, and we are all inter connected. That is the reason why we exist, and that is the reason why the world is able to function in such an orderly manner. I see nothing wrong with asking people about their results, because there are people who are traditionally strong in certain aspects. Comparing their results against your own gives u an idea of where you stand, and how much you need to improve before you decide whether you can make it or not. That is due to the fact that results are relative. Every batch, every test, will have different set of average results. Let’s say u got 70% for two different tests. For the first test, most people got like close to full marks, so you know you have to work harder for that particular topic. But for the second test, most people barely passed, thus 70% is considered quite an outstanding result. The same numerical result, but a totally different performance standard. Of course one can say that hey why care about what others get. So what if others barely passed, why cant u get full marks? But would that be a practical set of performance indicator? Nope. We know how good, or how bad our results are because of other people’s results around us, so there is nothing wrong with comparing results as long as u approach it with the correct mindset and mentality.

That is so similar to my first point. Ive been going round in circles, I realized. The middle parts were more or less coherent with someone’s ideas, but the comparing of results thingy I still beg to differ. It’s the mindset, and not the action. In this case, the action is not a clear indicator of the thoughts of the person, thus its unfair to judge them by their actions. It should be something like judge them by their reactions, like how they react upon knowing the results. Knowledge of the overall performance is for one to know where they stand, not for one to take the chance to laugh at others.